1. Field of the Disclosure
The invention in general relates to the field of power supply technology and in particular to that of switching power supply technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Switching power supplies are electronic modules that serve for transforming current and voltage and are widely used, for example, as computer or connector power supplies. However, switching power supplies also find use in many other fields of application. In particular, constant output voltages or currents are produced from an unstabilized input voltage by means of switching power supplies. The constancy of the output values is achieved by controlling the energy flow into the switching power supply by means of a control loop. The regulation is typically produced by means of time-controllable switches, which are designed, for example, as transistors.
Switching power supplies clearly achieve higher efficiencies in comparison to conventional power supplies. Since for switching power supplies, in particular with the use of synchronous rectifiers, a precise time control of the transistors functioning as switches must occur, dead times are typically provided in order to avoid short-circuit-like states, which are also called “shoot through” states. The dead times must be dimensioned sufficiently long in order to take into account effects such as variation in load, temperature drift, aging drift and component tolerance. The achievable efficiency of a switching power supply is limited, however, due to the long dead times.
Switching power supplies advantageously have a large tolerance range with respect to the voltage applied at the input and the load connected at the output, but a lower efficiency is typically achieved with low input voltages and small loads.